The Stuyck Co.

What: Bar/restaurant
Where: Madrid, Spain (33 Corredera Alta de San Pablo)

Hours:Unknown
 

I visited a new bar/restaurant called the Stuyck co. last weekend. Opened just this month, it boasts 14 taps of both Spanish and foreign craft beer and a bunch of small dishes to nibble on. I hadn't heard about this place until just this weekend, I felt an in depth investigation was in order, so I went there twice, first with my wife on Saturday and then with a friend on Sunday.

The space itself is ample and austerely decorated, sharing that industrial look so common in nowaday (hipster) bars. Bare brick, unpainted walls and wooden furniture make up a space dominated by a very cool semi circular bar and a large picture of demonstrations at the end of prohibition. Saturday nights it takes on the look of a nightlife spot, with loud music, some might say too loud for a bar/restaurant, while Sunday the ambiance seemed a little more relaxed, perfect for some causal beers and conversation.

My wife and I went there for dinner on Saturday and shared the currywurst corndogs, onion rings napolitana, king prawn bao, cochinita pibil bao, the Peking duck and pineapple taco and the black beer cake. 

The cake was really good, not too dense and not too cloying, just right. Other than that, probably the best were the onion rings, although the fact that they came without any sort of dip was weird and made them pretty dry. 

The corndogs were also pretty good, even though they weren't as good as the ones you can find in the US according to my wife, who likes this kind of thing enough to have benchmarks. The baos were really nothing to write home about, the bao itself undercooked and the content dry and somewhat flat-flavored. The duck tacos had some nice flavor to them but, I'm starting to see a pattern here, had very little sauce and were thus pretty dry.

No matter however that the food was a little dry, because there's plenty of great beer to wash it down with. Besides, sauces are fatty. It's always better to get your calories from alcohol.

I'm not entirely sure if the proportion is always going to be the same here, but the kegs they had on were very IPA-centric. Out of the 14 beers available, 3 were IPAs, 1 an imperial IPA and 1 black IPA, which amounts to over 1/3 of the selection. You can no doubt make a case for a little more variety here, but hardly for more quality: every single beer I had was excellent.

That first Saturday I tried the Goma 2, a tropical fruit and resin smelling IPA with a taste of mango and mandarine with a bitter dry end, the Standard by Prairie, a spicy, slightly tangy saison, the house Imperial Red Ale, extremely hoppy, dark red, malty and with a bitter end, and the Coconut from Maui, which was sweet, chocolaty and very luscious, although it was served way too cold (probably at the same temperature as the IPAs) to appreciate at the beginning.

 Sunday I came back with my friend Matt and the undeniable intent to try the rest of the taplist. I started off with Everglow, a fragrantly hoppy pale ale with a malty center and a bitter end from Dry & Bitter. Then I moved on to 8Ball, a rye IPA from Beavertown, fruity and slightly spicy, way too easy to drink. At that point I decided to veer away from the hops and go for the other available styles, starting off with the spectacular Dr. Caligari, an imperial berliner weisse from Toccalmatto full of both fruity hoppiness and a delicious funkyness which simultaneously pushed you towards it and drew you away. I finished off with two pints of Hel en Verdoemenis, the awesome imperial stout from De Molen, full of licorice, coffee and a slight winniness and boozyness with a thick and slightly oily mouthfeel.

the Imperial Red Ale by Stuyck co.

Matt tried the house imperial red to start, the Costa Oeste, a resiny and piny imperial IPA from Santo Cristo and then just stuck to Hel en Verdoemenis for the rest of the evening. We had already tried both Dougall's and Milana's Black Feet on other occasions. None of us really took the step to order the India Wheat Lager by Lervig because... well frankly, because anything with the word lager and an ABV under 5% is just not worth the trouble in our opinion.

All in all a fantastic addition to Madrid's craft beer scene, the Stuyck co. seems to have the beer part down pretty well, unlike others who seem to open in a rush and without adequately training their waiters or stocking up their beer list. The food could use some finishing touches to polish it up (like more sauce), but it seems to me they're minor issues which could easily be corrected. I definitely plan on coming back in the next few weeks to see how it all develops (and try their next 14 beers) and I think you all should too.